web hosting

Making the Most of Uptime

You may have noticed that most web hosting providers boast either a 99 or 99.9% uptime guarantee, a percentage that refers to how often the service will be up and running.  As a customer, these numbers look very impressive as they are not that short of perfection.  However, after learning more about these calculations, you may think twice when encountering a seemingly respectable uptime guarantee.

What is Covered in the Guarantee?

In most cases, the uptime a web host refers to only covers the servers and not the network.  When it comes to network issues and general maintenance, downtime is something that can heavily outweigh the advertised uptime guarantee.  This is why some customers running mission-critical operations look for SLAs (service level agreements) that compensate you in one way or another if downtime exceeds the agreement.  Unfortunately, several of the leading hosting providers usually do not make such an offer available.  The situation becomes even more complex when considering the potential downtime you could experience during the course of a year.  When doing so, the near perfect 99% doesn’t look so attractive.

Let’s work with a few examples.  A 98% uptime means that over a 12-month period, your website could be down for 175 hours and 19 minutes, which translates to about a week.  99% isn’t much better as your site could be unavailable for approximately 87 hours and 39 minutes over a one year period.  This is still a lot of time for someone running a busy website.  Most providers try to uphold the 99.9% uptime guarantee because it translate into the most reliable.  This is far more respectable as it means that you will only endure about 8 hours and 46 minutes of downtime over a 12 month period.  Sadly, downtime usually exceeds this number by far.  Even worst, many customers are in a no-win situation, forced to suffer from unavailability without being compensated for the excessive downtime.

Recognizing a Respectable Uptime

The best way to approach the perplexing issue of uptime is to select a hosting provider with a good reputation in the industry.  Downtime is unavoidable but it is much better when dealing with a company that will not try to manipulate the numbers and do all they can to ensure the highest availability.  Look for a host that provides good support so if something does happen, you can get in touch and find out how and when the service will be restored.

As far as the uptime guarantee goes, it is something you should look into if you are truly concerned about the availability of your site.  Read the fine print, do some investigating and if possible, choose a company that bases their uptime percentage over a monthly period.  If the calculations are made over a year, you could have a difficult time getting accurate credits for any downtime incurred.  Most reputable hosting providers take various measures to ensure reliability but things do happen.  When they do, you want a host that provides a fair playing ground with a guarantee that has your best interests in mind.

What Type of Hosting Do You Need?

Those looking to emerge on the internet have a slew of options and an abundance of providers.  You have got your free web hosting services.  Shared hosts.  Dedicated server providers.  All serve the same general purpose which is hosting your content so that it can be accessed and viewed by people on the internet.  The major difference is how each sector is structured as well as the benefits they offer.  Lets have a closer look at each of them.

Free Hosting

What could be any better than a free web hosting plan?  This makes a great option for someone who wants to create a homepage or small personal site to share with friends and family.  While free hosting has received a bad rap for its lack of security and support, there are few reliable hosts that will take care of you.  Tripod.com offers free hosting and actually comes with decent support.  If blogging is something you want to get into then WordPress makes a good choice.   However, free hosting is more geared for getting your feet wet and having a little fun on the net.  If you want to establish a powerful web presence with an online business, you need your own email address and domain name.  Though a free host may allow you to set up a PayPal shopping cart and sell your products and services, there is no doubt that your credibly will be tarnished when potential clients notice someone else’s domain tacked onto your URL.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the vehicle used by many people embarking upon their online endeabours.  As the name implies, this type of hosting describes a situation where you are sharing space on a web server with other users.  As clients are sharing the cost of the server, shared hosting is the most affordable and popular type of hosting available.  This makes a viable option for personal users and small businesses as companies will set you up with everything needed to open a web store – email accounts, shopping cart software, database access.  The problem with shared hosting all boils down to stability.

When hosting on a shared server, you are exposed to all the activities of your neighbors.  If someone makes a huge scripting error, the entire server can suffer.  If someone experiences a sudden burst in traffic, your site might run slower.  Because many providers will run hundreds to thousands of sites on a single machine, the shared server is susceptible to overloading and going down.  If it goes down, so does your business. On the other hand, several companies are able to make the most of shared hosting and provide excellent service, actually living up to their highly rated uptime guarantees.

Dedicated Hosting

When your business takes off and sharing server resources is out of the question, it’s time to move up to the dedicated server.  Now you’re in the big leagues with an entire server devoted to your hosting needs.  On the other hand, the dedicated server makes up the most labor intensive form of hosting; not exactly physical, but from a management aspect.   Without any experience, succeeding with this option is nearly impossible.  Those who require a dedicated server but don’t know a thing about server administration can get by with managed hosting.  In this scenario, the provider handles all the management tasks which frees you up to focus on other areas of the business.  Keep in mind that a managed service requires a larger initial investment on your part.

What is the Best Hosting For You?

The best advice we can give about hosting is to know what you’re getting into.  Free services are geared for personal sites, shared hosting is suited for small businesses and a dedicated server is designed for larger hosting needs, yet is far more expensive.  By knowing what your site requires, it will be much easier to determine which is the best solution.